Imperial ((Imperial) Web of Hearts and Souls) (15 page)

“You are still bound by truth to me.”

His icy eyes glanced to Mazing, then to me as he nodded once.

“Am I considered a possession by your king? Tell me now.”

“In a sense, yes.”

“In a sense?” I fumed, throwing a glare at him.

“Is not one’s soul their possession?”

“One’s soul?”

Rasp smiled; I missed that cool, sensual smile of his. “He states often that you are his soul.”

“Does he?” I said under my breath as my failing glare appraised him from head to toe. He was so strong, perfectly sculpted, a breathtaking creation, one that I could see the likes of my rush within. Maybe that was why I could not take the full effect of my glare from my eyes at this moment.

“I want to know why I was shelved and now retrieved.”

“I cannot give you truth that I do not know,” he said, holding my stare and not daring to waver under the fury he could see there.

“You are at his side near constantly. You never heard him speak of such reasons?”

“I may be at his side, but I am not in his thoughts,” he said, raising his brow in a somewhat humorous way. “What answers has Vade given you to these questions?” he asked when he saw that I was in no mood for humor.

“Nothing clear.”

“Lack of words,” Rasp said tilting his head and letting his eyes rain down on me, as if he were trying to get me to see the obvious.

I turned to walk away, not wanting to look weak in front of him. He reached for my arm as I passed him. Staring forward, in that deep whisper he was known for he spoke, “My king, and closest friend, tried aimlessly to release the command to bring you home long before the Veil was thinned. The Creator chose not to give him words until such a time as He deemed necessary. The desire was there. The fiercest desire you could ever witness…” His icy eyes found their way to me. “I was pleased when his words came, for I feared that very soon my king would lose his faith in his Creator, and if he did so our line would lose the favor of the Creator and would face defeat, for the last symbol of our beginning would perish.”

“It would not, for I believe in the Creator.”

“Do you?”

“Why would you question that, Rasp?” I asked with disdain.

“A beautiful sovereign told me once that when you believe in something, you do not ask questions about how you will reach the point you feel called to—that point and the paths open for you when you believe there is a reason for everything. That if you are walking through hell at this moment, you can guarantee that bliss is on the horizon. That is, as long as you believe the former.”

My words. I spoke them to him not long after I was raised from my first death. All I felt then was bliss, I was young, feeling a deep rush for a favored king, the hell of my past life was gone, and nothing threatened my future. I never understood the hell I lived through as child, but I believed it would be nothing but a distant memory, that I had a fate calling me that I could not see. I held that belief, and because I did, I’d found my way here.

“I have missed you,” I finally said.

He tried to hold in a smile. “Barely noticed you were gone.”

When my mouth fell open, he laughed and pulled me to his chest. “You know they have a word for when old friends meet again; it’s called ‘hello.’ Even phrases like ‘How you doin,’’ ‘What’s up with you these days.’”

I squeezed him before leaning back and staring up at him. “You’re not mad at me for trying to kill you, are you?”  I said as I playfully punched his rock hard gut.

“Me? Mad? Never. What does such an emotion feel like?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m glad to see your humor is intact.”

“Just have a reason to smile now.”

“Right, then. Well, drop the formalities. To do what I have to do, I’m going to have to be what I was in the Veil. Formal words and grace are not going to be in play.”

“Oh, so you mean you have to be real? That blows,” he said with a playful smirk. “But hey, if that is your will, maybe you can work on bringing back my best friend to that level.”

“Has Vade been really intense around you?”

“Intense,” he said, widening his eyes. “You could say that.” He sighed as he brushed off the past. “So what is the plan? Looking for a Fated?”

“I’ll find him when I touch the springs. That is not the hard part.”

“Na, the hard part is that he’s brainwashed.”

“Blind to his true existence. I’m proud that he was claimed.”

“That you should be, but that boy is fierce. He dared to take on two of our Fated at once.”

“And he is alive,” I said, angling up my chin in mock supremacy.

“Because one of yours stopped ours.” He smirked. “With a glance and a word or two. Must run in the line, that appeal you have.”

“Glad to see you find wrath seductive.”

A hum echoed from his chest, along with a sinful smile. “That I do, but she did not use such a power.”

“Then maybe I should ask for her help with Silas,” I mused aloud.

“Not a good plan.”

“Pray tell,” I breathed. The best way to get clear information out of Rasp was to keep him in a playful mood.

“She is the reason that the one he carries a fever for left him.”

“You’re joking.”

“Wish I was. She told Silas’ girl that she would adore one of Vade’s, and she was very right about that.”

“That is downright unnatural,” Mazing said, finally finding her strength again. She had pushed Colton’s memory deep down inside at this point, and she was still breathing; that was a good sign.

Mazing was right. The last thing anyone in my line would do would be to encourage heartache, and for that ache to be caused by another line, even if they didn’t know they were Fated, to me they should have felt that deep inside.

That green-eyed girl of mine must know something that I am blind to just now.

“Nothing about those peeps is natural, I can assure you of that,” Rasp stated with a bit of humor.

“Nice vocabulary,” Mazing said to him with a playful glare.

He shaded a smirk. “Did you not tell me to chillax an hour ago?”

I could not hold in my laugh. When you linger with the dead from across time, you pick up a few words. I kinda adored slang, and I was a bit stoked that they were acting normal with each other again.

“Let’s do this,” I murmured once the light mood between us began to fade.

Chapter Ten

I gazed at the dim streams and called forth the image that Vade had given me of Silas, then carefully stepped forward and touched the wall of water. As the rush of my energy met this sacred spring, it rippled and a low rumble was released. When the water became still again, I saw my lost Fated Escort.

It was not a pleasant sight. Silas was in The Realm on the third level. There were masses of beings around him. He was in a raging war with two others. Black smoke, which was the sign of pure evil, was filling the air at toxic levels. I could sense a mix of aromas that belonged to other kings among those Silas was fighting.

My sharp intake of breath caused Rasp to question me.

“Eyes,” he stated evenly as he and Mazing stretched their long, lean muscles, a silent gesture that stated their warrior essence was flooding to the surface.

“War. A horrid war in The Realm. He is surrounded. Two other Witnesses are with him.” They could not see what I was seeing in this spring.

“What do the adversaries look like?” Rasp asked.

“Men. Black suits. Not formal, but nice. They are moving in uniform. With each that fall, more descend.”

He nodded once, as if that were nothing odd.

I had a problem here. Every ounce of my being wanted to send one thought to those men in suits and smite them where they stood. But if I did so, whoever their king was would know that I had. I wasn’t even sure that with the restraints on my power that I could do such a thing, or fight the consequences of that act.

“Whom do they belong to?” I fumed.

“Several.  I wouldn’t even call them real,” Rasp stated. “The Realm is infected with evil emotions. Those emotions have manifested these famished beings. They have no solid connection with their sovereign because the acts of the kings have been mingled.”

“How many could I kill before the kings would feel it?”

“In a single blow?” Rasp questioned, raising one brow. “A thousand or so.”

Both Mazing and my eyes grew wide. That was a massive number for any race of beings.

“So what are they, like, clones?” I supposed that was the right word I was searching for. This was all new to me. Before I left, every being was precious; it was almost like these men were designed to be soldiers, yet they were poor versions of them because it only took one swift blow to end them.

“That is a nicer word than what I was using,” Rasp said, glaring at the wall, waiting for me to give him an order.

“Which was?”

“Assholes.”

That made me smirk, in turn taking the edge off those protective emotions that were seizing my soul.

“What? I’m G-rated compared to your rush,” Rasp stated, only letting half a smile break through his warrior composure.

No doubt there. Vade was poetic around me, but not so much in his closed circle. I believe the term is ‘cusses like a sailor.’

“I can kill a thousand of these beings and no one would know?” I clarified.

I could not get over these men. They were like savage animals. If they did manage to get their grip on Silas or the two with him, they didn’t really fight; they just breathed in. They were starved beings, the walking dead of all creation.

“He is fighting that many now?” Rasp questioned, not wanting me to push the limits of my hidden return.

“No, maybe a hundred or so.”

“I can do that for you.”

“I know you can, but that is not the point.” I analyzed Silas as he fought. Silas was so graceful, without any clear emotion; only duty. Not surprisingly, he was pristine. No filth fell upon him; only a few marks were on his clothes. No sweat or blood. He had been truly risen, and his human form was more than amplified now, taking away physical pain, the need for sleep or food, along with almost every human need that could be thought of.

“This is what we are going to do,” I announced. “I’ll freeze the scene, stand inside a barricade of energy with him, alone, while Rasp cloaks us.”

“You should not be alone with him on your first meeting,” Rasp’s tone offered little room for compromise.

“Right. I’ll stand with you,” Mazing added.

“No,” I ordered. “He deserves to see me as one, as all the others before. I will not let him feel invaded.”

“Then what? Bring him home? What about the two Witnesses with him? Will they fight us?” Mazing said, clearly disagreeing with me. She wouldn’t feel that way if she could see him, sense him. Silas was mine. He would not attempt to hurt me.

“They should be wiped,” Rasp all but demanded.

Sovereigns and Firsts could not only stop time—as long as good intent was in place—but they could also wipe the memory of themselves from whomever they spoke to. Rasp didn’t trust Witnesses, but I had seen too many of them in the Veil. They brought no harm unless it was called for; it was their sacred oath. Usually, they were too focused on those in their care even to notice you. Eventually, I would have to take the memory of Silas from those with him, but in this spring I could see how he was leading them, how in some way he was teaching them. I wouldn’t do that just yet.

“We will see where this conversation takes us. Like everyone else, he deserves time to mull over this revelation. Maybe even more time considering that I’m about to tell him that the enemy he fights is in his soul.”

“No, it is not,” Mazing said with a growl. “He fights evil and poor kings.”

Rasp nodded once to agree. “And we have no time. He has already made more than one advance against our line and left the threat in the air that he will attack again.”

“I will take any motive he has to attack away the second he hears my reasoning why he cannot,” I blatantly stated.

“Silas is not like any other you or any sovereign has been called to. He was born rogue. Might as well be a wild animal,” Rasp warned.

“He is not either of those. He’s been abandoned, and now I will bring him home. Now he is found.”

“Tread carefully, sovereign. I will be but a breath away whilst you speak with him,” Rasp stated in that deep, powerful whisper of his. There was a reason why Vade trusted Rasp to watch over me: Rasp was downright deadly when the need arose. Creator help whoever crossed him or attempted to hurt the ones under his watch.

Rasp knew better than to kill Silas, that it would in turn be a blow to not only me, but in some way Vade, but that didn’t mean Rasp wouldn’t take Silas to the brink of death.

Which was exactly what would not win me any favors in this situation. Not happening. No, we were going to be nice and smooth with this. Get right to the truth in a sensible, adult manner.